We are pleased to confirm that Lena Samuels has been named by NHS England as the Chair Designate for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board, subject to the new statutory body coming into being on 1 April 2022. The Health and Care Bill which will put Integrated Care Systems on a statutory footing was introduced to Parliament in July 2021 and is expected to receive Royal Assent in Spring 2022.
The new Integrated Care Board (ICB) will take on the Clinical Commissioning Group functions as well as some commissioning functions currently undertaken by NHS England. It will work very closely with the Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) which will bring together health, social care, public health and other partners to develop a plan to integrate health and care for our population of 1.8 million people across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
The creation of the Integrated Care Board allows us to work across a large geography to deliver consistency of care and reduce inequalities. Retaining a strong local focus will also be key and we will continue to work in the communities where our residents live and work, understanding the issues that matter to them and ensuring they are at the heart of our plans.
Lena was appointed Chair of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) in January 2019 and has since supported the development of the Integrated Care System as Chair.
Lena began her career as a lecturer in further and higher education and managed a training centre in London for young people at risk of exclusion. Lena has held a number of leadership roles across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight including as a non-executive director with University Hospital Southampton and an associate non-executive director with Isle of Wight NHS Trust. She has also chaired the NHS South East Regional People Board. Lena took on the role of Chair of South Central Ambulance Service in 2017 and will step down from this role in due course to focus on the Integrated Care Board.
Lena commented;
“It has been an honour to Chair Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care System in recent years and to be confirmed as Chair Designate of the Integrated Care Board is a great privilege.
Throughout the course of the pandemic we have laid strong foundations of integrated working with our partners. We have come together in new ways to share ideas, build on our collective experience and develop solutions to some of our shared challenges.
As we head into the next phase of our ICS development I am confident we can build on this to ensure we deliver the very best for our people and our communities.”
In Hampshire and Isle of Wight we are very well placed to become a statutory ICS. We have brought together, where appropriate, many of the CCG functions with our emerging ICS to ensure a safe transition of functions ahead of April 2022. Our partnership working across the NHS and with local authority colleagues continues to strengthen and has been bolstered by the learning from the pandemic.
Collaboration is at the heart of our approach and over the coming months we will be reaching out to our partners and communities to invite them to help shape the Integrated Care System constitution and develop our shared strategy.
Following Lena’s appointment as Chair, further appointments to the Integrated Care Board will take place over the course of the autumn and we will provide regular updates on our progress towards becoming a statutory ICS.